1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to manufacturing and using bitumen to produce products such as road paving. This invention particularly relates to blending bitumen for use in road paving applications.
2. Background of the Prior Art
Very heavy hydrocarbons are generally referred to in the art as bitumen, kerogen, asphalt, and tar. These materials may be the high molecular weight hydrocarbons frequently encountered in subterranean formations. They may also be the similar materials resulting from refining crude oil. These very heavy hydrocarbons range from thick viscous liquids to solids at ambient temperatures.
When produced directly from geological formations, they are generally quite expensive to recover in useful form. For example, bitumen occurs naturally in tar sands in locations such as Alberta, Canada and in the Orinoco oil belt north of the Orinoco river in Venezuela. Kerogens are the precursors to fossil fuels, and are also the material that forms oil shales. Kerogens are frequently found in sedimentary rock formations. Asphalts or bitumen is also the term applied to the very heavy hydrocarbons resulting from crude oil refining steps such as cracking and coking.
Bitumen is a long lasting material, even in severe environments, and can almost always be recycled. Sources of recycled bitumen include, but are not limited to, road asphalt, automobile tires, roofing shingles, and roofing membranes. In recycling bitumen, it is often desirable to mix a recycled bitumen stream with a virgin bitumen stream. Sometimes, a heavy hydrocarbon that not necessarily an asphalt or bitumen may be used to mix with the recycle stream.
Unfortunately, these bitumen streams are not always compatible which can lead to premature failure of the bitumen product produced therewith. It is difficult to predict which bitumen mixtures are compatible and which are not so it would be desirable in the art to be able to reliably determine the stability of bitumen product streams prior to using those streams to manufacture products such as road paving materials.